Portuguese is to Cape Verdean as Mandarin is to Taishanese.

I realize I did not properly introduce myself in written form and maybe we even got off on the wrong foot. In fact, readers may wonder why someone Chinese and white has the audacity to comment on Cape Verdean culture. I have been doing something similar with Boston’s Chinatown, the community which I am a part of. So it isn’t a huge jump to write about Cape Verdeans, a people who I had gone to school with for years… and yet seemed to know nothing about.
And when writing about these two cultures I can’t help but start to compare the communities.
And the truth there are some ideas that buzz around in both communities that if shared could really bring both groups forward… perhaps even save one from cultural extinction.

Boston’s Chinatown

One thing that I noticed that Chinese Communities have that Cape Verdean Communities (so far that I’ve seen) seem not to have is your Chinese School. Chinatown has Kwong Kow. Newton has GBCCA. There is a Chinese school in Malden. It’s a place not only to learn Chinese but a place to learn Chinese Cultural things. Folk dance, Chinese Yo Yo, Chinese dulcimer, painting, Lion Dance, Kung Fu… you get my drift.
I assume that Cape Verdean Community centers offer similar programming. But What I noticed talking to people is that it seems to be offered primarily to adults. It’s not a summer camp or after school program to push your kids into so that they can learn how to speak their language.

When Kwong Kow was more Taishanese, it was a place where, after all those hours, it was expected that you be able to write your name in Chinese, say a few words in “herng ha wah” the hometown language, in this case Taishanese, and hang out with some other Taishanese and Chinese people. But slowly other types of Chinese came in, Communist China became a powerful country, Kwong Kow slowly started to use Simplified Chinese as well as the Traditional Chinese characters and to start teaching Mandarin. In fact much of their summer camp and after school is now conducted in English and there are just Chinese classes. This is viewed as moving forward and at first glance, the Chinese community got it and the Cape Verdean community could learn from that.

But letting these ideas sit around a little bit, I realized that Taishanese culture is slowly strangling itself to death, while Cape Verdean Creole Culture, though around for 500 years, is just getting starting to come into its own power, Cabo Verde network, perhaps being on of the first steps of organization toward greatness. For instance, Professor Manuel De Luz Goncalves has recently written a Cape Verdean-English dictionary. So this is what I hear when asked about why there aren’t Cape Verdean schools. That it is a new idea. While Chinese is one of the oldest languages there is.

However, I have never seen a Taishanese- English dictionary. The explanation for this is that the writing is the same. But there are Cantonese and Hong Kong ways to write down certain words which do not translate directly into Mandarin. There are many Taishanese (and Cantonese) phrases which you can’t write down in Chinese…. But Jook Sings (Chinese Americans) will easily use these words to Google stuff using a non standardized English spelling, and Google will understand it and get you write where you need to go. In other words, though the Chinese community seems to be ahead, the Taishanese Community, in terms of cultural awareness. Seems to be behind Cape Verdean culture.
Many Cape Verdeans used to call themselves Black Portuguese. And here is where you really see that Cape Verdean culture is moving toward something greater, where Taishanese culture is slowly and willingly allowing Mandarin culture to finally, after thousands of years of civilization, to kill it off. There are no Cape Verdean children’s schools because children in Cape Verde learn Portuguese in schools. So the equivalent organization in America would be a Portuguese school. And why have that? Why not just learn English? But once you suddenly start to feel that you are NOT black Portuguese, but you are awakened to a Cape Verdean pride, then you start to look at yourself and your community differently.
Portuguese is the language of the empire and Cape Verde is the colony, with its own culture and language which has been mixing for 500 years, and may have basis in a native culture which depending on which article online you read, was there, or was not there. Cape Verdean Independence happened in July 5, 1975, so that even though the culture has been around, that pride in it, to organize to preserve and promote it is just getting started. But it is there.
Taishanese in the meantime are slowly being further absorbed into Mandarin Culture, the Communist Chinese Empire. Many Taishanese Americans are starting to have that pride in a culture they lost. But nobody is doing anything about it yet. More self identified groups like Hakka, Hokien, and those types are similarly doing what I see being done in Cape Verdean Culture. I thought after studying Cape Verdean culture for a few years, I may be able to bring something back to the Chinatown Community. What I have found is that after one festival in Onset, I already have many things that I can bring back.

About The Author

Author of Kung Fu and Love, Kung Fu and Parenting, Kung Fu and the invisible Hand and other works, Adam Cheung began the Boston Chinatown Blog (www.bostonchinatownblog.org) to document the changing community he was raised in, and to share untold stories, history, and culture of Chinatown to the world. He learned to that there are many stories in every culture that people immersed in it often take for granted and was excited to come on board to the CV Network. You can buy his novels on Amazon or through his blog, www.kungfudad.blogspot.com.
Adam has taught Martial Arts at Kwong Kow Chinese School, Little Panda Day Care Center, Sunshine day care center, and Woo Ching White Crane. In the past he has been a part of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association' s Crime Watch in Chinatown, and has done Para Legal work for the Narcotics and Asset Forfeiture Unit of the Suffolk County District Attorney's office under Dan Conley. He has done a stint as a Bank teller in Chinatown, and continues to teach and perform and practice Martial Arts and Chinese Lion Dance with his own family team as well as other organizations in Chinatown. These activities and jobs put him in a position to hear many interesting stories and perspectives about the community which inevitably led him to writing them down. On the blog when it was safe, and in fictionalized accounts when it wasn't.

3 Comments

Language is intimately woven with our awareness of self, therefore the loss of one’s home language creates a sense of loss identity. Building Cape Verdean schools is an excellent idea because it will reinforce the values and importance of understanding our culture and connecting with it through language; this may help to obliterate colonization of the mind.

Fabulous! Your comparison of what is evolving in both cultures is spot on! This is, indeed, an ongoing conversation that is vital to the preservation of both cultures. I love the idea of Cape Verdean schools!

Cape Verdean in America has a lost of identity because we’re in country with no true identity and culture. Everyone born and raised here should be thought to adapt to one culture. Hence, I might be a minority in this dialogue, but, am completely disagreingwith the idea for building schools for anyone ethnicity born here. This only create more division.

Furthermore, yes, in Cape Verde the language thought is Portuguese and, therefore, it should be the language all Cape Verdeans should be thought in US if there is ever such a school.

For example, the lack of Portuguese for CV born in America is making it tough, if not impossible, for many deported back to CV. Hence, why not be educated in what the proper language for jobs and educational purpose rather than to preserve “prides and culture”? What culture by the way if CV will always be a “mixed” and diverse country?

America’s thriving to make Cape Verdean born here to stay more connected to Creole is the same as saying, you have Black heritage, in therefore, the prestige of an European Empire language, should be preserved only for those who are 100% deserving of it. Stay uneducated thrive to tie only to your African blood by representing Creole. It shows pride in culture. When we deport you, face the language barriers.

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